A tribute to nurses; the front-line soldiers who are ready to sacrifice their lives in the war against COVID-19

Abstract

In the late December 2019, a unique type of pneumonia was observed in Wuhan city and was reported by China Centre for Disease Control (China CDC). The pathogen was identifed on January 07, 2020 and was named as COVID-19. The COVID-19 has transmission rate more than MERS-COV and SARS-COV. The fatality rate, so far, is around 5% that is more than the common infuenza.¹ According to WHO report until the end of June, 2020, there are approximately 10 million confrmed cases worldwide with total approximately 0.5 million deaths. In Pakistan alone until now there are 0.2 million confrmed cases with more than 4000 deaths.² The whole world is affected by this pandemic psychosocially, economically and physically.

To control the spread of infection almost all the countries have started lockdowns. Majority of them are following smart lockdowns where the infected cluster population is sealed only and the restrictions on economic activities are under the safety guidelines. The scientists and medical experts are trying to develop treatment and vaccine against the infection.³ Those who have already got the infections have been quarantined and those with severe symptoms are hospitalized for treatment almost all-over the world. The health care staff including doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other paramedical staff are struggling for the prevention and cure of the disease. This struggle makes them on risk for getting infection by themselves. Thousands of doctors and nurses have already been affected by the infections and hundreds of them have sacrificed their lives in fighting against it. Among all the health care workers, nurses are the professionals who spent more time than the other with the patients and are directly involved in care of the infected patients. Over 20 million nurses worldwide are fighting as front-line soldiers against COVID-19 all-over the world⁴ and because of the unique patient facing nature of the profession, nurses are at high occupational risk in communities and hospitals.⁵ It would not be wrong to say that the most vulnerable professionals in this life-threatening pandemic are nurses. Nurses need to be supported by the government and non-governmental organizations by providing them safe environment and protective equipment. Their duties should be scheduled as per WHO recommendations and they need to be compensated in terms of treatment and screening test if anyone of them is suspected for the infection. Today, the health care workers are the real heroes and nurses are the front-line members of the team. The brave efforts of these frontline soldiers are acknowledged all over the world and they have been saluted.